Cytokinin's role in embryonic root stem-cell formation
Plant Developmental Genetics
Despite the essential role of plants to support animal life on earth, our understanding of plant developmental processes is still fragmentary (Nawy et al., 2008). Similar to animals (Davidson and Erwin, 2006), plants use relatively few intercellular signaling systems. Each of these signaling pathways is involved in a myriad of processes during the life cycle. For example, the plant hormones auxin (Robert and Friml, 2009) or cytokinin (Müller and Sheen, 2007) are required for countless tasks during development. To analyze a long-postulated function of cytokinin during embryonic pattern formation (Skoog and Miller, 1957), I have constructed a novel synthetic sensor that labels the cytokinin-signaling cells in planta. Combined with targeted genetic manipulations, I have discovered an antagonistic relation between auxin and cytokinin that is required for embryonic stem-cell specification in Arabidopsis thaliana (Müller and Sheen, 2008). Currently, we are characterizing the genetic regulatory network downstream of cytokinin signaling that governs embryonic stem-cell specification by combining tailored genetic approaches, proven but sophisticated micro-dissection methods, and next-generation sequencing methods.
Research topics
Pattern formation
Gene regulatory networks
Arabidopsis
Development
